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Does Your Story Need a Tragic Death? A friend was talking to me about stories in which a child dies. he asked, “Is a child’s death in a novel just a cheap narrative device?” Well, it depends. Depth of Characterization. How well do we know the character? Do we know and care for the child? [...]
Do you pay attention to your audience when you write, or do you write for yourself, an audience of one? PW’s Shelf Talker Josie Leavitt has an interesting posting on when toddlers pick out their own books. Even as toddlers, boys and girls choose books differently. Both are passionate about the books they love and [...]
When you write a nonfiction picture book, a biography (of any length) or other nonfiction topics, how much do you document? Do you use end notes, foot notes, or what? Well-Documented Nonfiction Sells a Manuscript Original Sources. You should use as many original or primary sources as possible. Go back to the original diary, the [...]
Learn to Listen to Critiquers Listening to critiques is hard! I have to remind myself that writing is communication, with a writer and a reader. When I get feedback, what I’m really doing is checking to see if I communicated what I wanted to. Well, no. I didn’t. I have two choices: Ignore the feedback. [...]
Yesterday, I started brainstorming on revisions for a picture book. I got some editorial feedback in February when I saw the editor in NYC. But it’s been hard to approach this revision because when we talked, I disagreed with much of what the editor said. Cooling Off Period Helps Me See Editor’s Wisdom So, I [...]
Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels. Will This [...]
Children’s Books Beating the Recession? What’s the state of children’s publishing? Harold Underdown, The Purple Crayon website, has reported on the economic turmoil in publishing of late 2008 and into early 2009. Publishing, especially books for kids, is on the upswing? So say a couple of postings: JIll Cocoran, Literary Agent at the Herman Agency [...]
Letting Characters Emerge Hurrah! My potential character took the bait! He is revealing himself slowly. As I was thinking of ideas for picture books, an idea came up: what if the family was structured in a distinctive way? At 2 a.m. this morning, the character woke me up and started dictating a scene about dealing [...]
10 Ways to Start the Process of Re-Envisioning How do you start revisions? You’ve got a great draft, and it’s pretty settled in your mind that this is how the story happens. BUT, readers aren’t thrilled with it. Editors and agents pass it by with a nice personal letter. Great, you think. There’s something here, [...]
Keeping in touch with kids is hard sometimes. I’ve been working on lists of picture book ideas for Friday Ideas and I find myself writing nonsense! No kid would be interested in some of the ideas I put down. Then, my grand-daughter came to visit and I remembered what I must never forget: kids have [...]
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